Web development development in the region. A look at the question from the point of view of the top studios runet (part 3)
This is my third meeting with a representative of the Runet TOP-Studio for interest in working with the regions. The topic is becoming more acute, and the opinions of opponents all the more interesting and reasonable. This time I met with Mikhail Tokovinin, the head of QSOFT . Mikhail spoke about his experience in working with regions and made several statements that make you think.
The company QSOFT, according to the rating Tagline 2009 and CMS magazine, is included in the list of the best web studios runet. QSOFT clients include such companies as Eldorado, MTS, Svyaznoy, Rostelecom. The company's specialization can be described in three phrases: technologically complex tasks, integration of sites with any external systems and high loads. Simply put, QSOFT develops online stores and related services.
MT: I think that this model is absolutely unreal in Russia. First, this idea is based on the postulate that it is cheaper in the regions. To begin with, this is not true. The level of wages in Moscow is often lower than in the regions, no matter how strange it may sound. First of all, because Moscow is a big city. Many programmers come here, respectively, the choice of the employer is much more. In the regions there are few personnel who use it, demanding high salaries.
We, at one time, worked through these scenarios. We investigated almost all cities of Russia according to several criteria. We were interested in: the standard of living according to census data, the number of technical universities per thousand population, and a considerable distance from Moscow. For these parameters, we have selected several cities. These are Novosibirsk, Rostov-on-Don, Saratov ... it was the three main leaders where such a center could be located. Of these, Saratov was the clear leader. When we moved from words to deeds, it turned out that there were simply no programmers in Saratov, or rather there were very few of them. As a result, the salary proposals that we received were not very different from what we had in Moscow. To this were added the costs of maintaining the office. Therefore, the idea that there is cheaper is often false. This is the first.
Now the second moment. Generally, whether to outsource? The idea of ​​selling a site for a million and giving a subcontractor to do it for a hundred thousand, putting it in your pocket for nine hundred, seems very tempting. Unfortunately, I don’t know of a single example when someone succeeded in doing this. And we did not succeed even once, although we tried exactly ten times. The trick here is as follows. Projects are not made in a vacuum. They are made together with the customer and according to customer requirements. The performer has obligations to him. Obligations to the present customer and to the intermediary are perceived by people differently. In the scheme of work with a regional contractor, the third feels a lot less commitment than the one who is on the phone with the customer and promises him something. It turns out that there is some responsibility that is borne in the sieve. The further, the harder it is to convey. From a staff member it is difficult to achieve a sense of responsibility, and it is even more difficult to transfer it out. What follows from this is not necessary to explain.
MT: Partially, but not completely. It should be understood that any Internet project is not static. There is no TK that was sold at the beginning and respected throughout the development. It is a myth. All projects in the course of its implementation are changing, changing requirements, changing conditions, changing volume. The customer is simple or bad. And these are risks. Is the contractor ready to carry them?
In the portfolio of projects of any studio the picture is approximately the following. A third of the projects are very profitable, half of the projects are conditionally normal, and a third are very unprofitable. They are unprofitable, not because someone is guilty, but circumstances have arisen. As with the insurance policy. Someone just went on the road and by coincidence, had an accident. As an insurance company, you must fulfill your obligations. We have many times had cases when we took out a million rubles from our own pocket and reported to the project budget. It is no coincidence that we sell our sites more expensive. We sell them for as long as expect from us a certain level of responsibility. People who do it cheaper (not for a million, but for a hundred thousand) cannot bear such a degree of responsibility. As soon as the requirements on the part of the customer change, we immediately have difficulties with the subcontractor.
')
MT: Yes, we planned to open our branch. There is a trick here. For each programmer’s hour, one manager’s hour is required. No one understands this. The project manager is spending the most, especially on a large project. Collect requirements, manage requirements, test, communicate with the customer, set project tasks, etc. This is hard work, which you need to invest a lot in order for the project to be launched and implemented. At the same time, the manager should sit near the customer (in this case in Moscow). If at the same time the developers are remote, then there will be such a communication that the manager will need to spend even more time than he spends sitting in the same office. Developers are not the most expensive resource at all. This is one big mistake to think that it is generally expensive. Compared with the heads and managers, the cost of developers in the project (programmer, designer, coder ...) generally fades. So we get that the mythical savings in the salaries of developers of 20-30% in general does not please anyone against the background of basic costs.
As a result, we have never opened our branch. When they started to count, it turned out that this is some kind of idiocy)
M.T: Exactly. Production is 15%, maximum 20%. Manager’s job - 30%. 20-25% - this is the total project costs (sales, warranty), the remaining 25-30% I would call "implementation" (modifications, additions, launch). The production itself, which can be brought to the region, makes no sense to go there. This is true, but nobody wants to know it. All these figures are confirmed by statistics from our accounting system, in which, for many years, perfectly-accurate hours are kept. Moreover, if you look at the project’s spending, then, in addition to the manager and the main developers, there are many people involved in the project who spend little time on the project. At the same time, they all communicate with each other. If they communicated remotely, then the time of their participation can be easily multiplied by 5 due to communication problems. Is it outsourced?
I believe that effective outsourcing in our field of activity is a myth. In other countries, please, but not in Russia.
MT: India and the United States, for example, work because there is a wild gap in the standard of living and, as a result, a wild gap in the cost of the code. At the same time, the Americans themselves say that the code is terrible, everything is terrible, but it is so cheap ...). If the salary in the region would be several times less, then we could talk about this kind of cooperation, but within the framework of one country this is unrealistic.
MT: In general, programmers like to exaggerate their income), telling each other what their salaries are. I often hear: "Over 100 thousand is for food to work ...". This is all nonsense of course, complete. We hire people all the time, we know. The reality is not like that. Real wages are much less than people between each other are proud of. Today, the average salary of a programmer in Moscow (if you do not take into account the salary in some crazy start-ups) is 30, maximum 35 thousand per month. This is the average salary, taking into account all large and small. Really starts from 15 to 60.
MT: You are hopelessly far from reality. Here lives so many people who live and for less money. No need to think that in Moscow is a very sweet life. Room for 10 thousand, travel on the subway and the remainder of the food. So the situation is like that. If in the regions developers would get 10 or 5 thousand, then working with them would probably make sense. But since they receive the same 25-30 thousand there, it is not clear for what reason to start everything.
M.: 100 rubles.
M. T: Absolutely. More than 100 rubles would not pay. It is absolutely real. More expensive to us is simply not profitable.
MT: Only one option will suit me. For example, a team sits in Saratov, we buy it for a certain amount per month and, it works only for us. Model outstaffing. The third one is no longer due to responsibility (we will definitely change our requirements, because they will be changed by the customer, but they definitely will not be able to draw it out). The second model in my opinion is not effective, especially when working remotely. Accordingly, it will be exactly outstaffing.
MT: I am against it. Programmers are not the people with whom you need to play such games. For most people, such complex schemes only harm. People should get a big salary if they work well and a little if they work poorly. But, anyway, they should receive a stable salary and know that they will receive it tomorrow. A person will never sit at work more for the additional 100 rubles of extracurricular work. I do not believe in the primitive motivation of hourly pay.
MT: That will remain the same. The turnover of money on the site development market will greatly increase, but almost all the money will be deposited within the companies of the customers. They will create their own teams, maintain and develop their own departments. For them, sites become too important to be badly done. We will never be able to provide such salaries to our employees, as a bank can do, for example. If tomorrow VTB Bank needs to do its website very well and very quickly, it will be able to put together on its side such a strong team that the web studio will never assemble. Inside, he will spend incomparably more money, but it will not soar anyone, because it will be important.
Big players will hardly appear. Integrated service providers — system integrators and large advertising agencies — will become more active.
It will be more obvious division on the advertising part and technology. The advertising part will be divided as follows: a third of the money remains inside the companies themselves for their own specialists, half of the money is the large network advertising agencies and 10% in the form of 10% remain for independent studios. With technology it will be even worse. 50% of the money will remain within companies, 40% to system integrators and other integrated service providers, 10% to other web studios.
You need to understand that most likely the current web studios have no chance of becoming big. What is, and will remain so. They will get a small piece of cake. At the same time, there are chances to take strong positions in any narrow niches. I believe that there may be some kind of regional studios that are very strong in local topics. For example, a team that is best able to do complex projects for transport companies. In highly specialized niches everything is still free. Nobody even tried to do it. And in this case, regional binding will have no meaning. The main thing on their side is to collect a unique competence, where experts who understand the problems will work, are better than the customer.
In the next article I will try to summarize the interview with Oksana Klimenko (RBC SOFT), Dmitry Kozlov (DEFA Interaktiv), Misha Tokovinin and draw some conclusions. If you wish, help me in this. Waiting for comments and questions.
Vasily Churanov, the head of the Tvins regional studio and the Web-canape quick solutions project, conducts a series of interviews with representatives of Runet’s top studios.
Anyone who is interested in this topic can read the first two interviews with Dmitry Kozlov (DEFA Intreaktiv company) and Oksana Klimenko (RBC SOFT company)
The company QSOFT, according to the rating Tagline 2009 and CMS magazine, is included in the list of the best web studios runet. QSOFT clients include such companies as Eldorado, MTS, Svyaznoy, Rostelecom. The company's specialization can be described in three phrases: technologically complex tasks, integration of sites with any external systems and high loads. Simply put, QSOFT develops online stores and related services.
V.CH: Moscow is engaged in sales and management, and the development is subcontracted to a regional team. Is there such a business model and how profitable is it?
MT: I think that this model is absolutely unreal in Russia. First, this idea is based on the postulate that it is cheaper in the regions. To begin with, this is not true. The level of wages in Moscow is often lower than in the regions, no matter how strange it may sound. First of all, because Moscow is a big city. Many programmers come here, respectively, the choice of the employer is much more. In the regions there are few personnel who use it, demanding high salaries.
We, at one time, worked through these scenarios. We investigated almost all cities of Russia according to several criteria. We were interested in: the standard of living according to census data, the number of technical universities per thousand population, and a considerable distance from Moscow. For these parameters, we have selected several cities. These are Novosibirsk, Rostov-on-Don, Saratov ... it was the three main leaders where such a center could be located. Of these, Saratov was the clear leader. When we moved from words to deeds, it turned out that there were simply no programmers in Saratov, or rather there were very few of them. As a result, the salary proposals that we received were not very different from what we had in Moscow. To this were added the costs of maintaining the office. Therefore, the idea that there is cheaper is often false. This is the first.
Now the second moment. Generally, whether to outsource? The idea of ​​selling a site for a million and giving a subcontractor to do it for a hundred thousand, putting it in your pocket for nine hundred, seems very tempting. Unfortunately, I don’t know of a single example when someone succeeded in doing this. And we did not succeed even once, although we tried exactly ten times. The trick here is as follows. Projects are not made in a vacuum. They are made together with the customer and according to customer requirements. The performer has obligations to him. Obligations to the present customer and to the intermediary are perceived by people differently. In the scheme of work with a regional contractor, the third feels a lot less commitment than the one who is on the phone with the customer and promises him something. It turns out that there is some responsibility that is borne in the sieve. The further, the harder it is to convey. From a staff member it is difficult to achieve a sense of responsibility, and it is even more difficult to transfer it out. What follows from this is not necessary to explain.
V.C: If you still manage to find a responsible team, does this solve the problem?
MT: Partially, but not completely. It should be understood that any Internet project is not static. There is no TK that was sold at the beginning and respected throughout the development. It is a myth. All projects in the course of its implementation are changing, changing requirements, changing conditions, changing volume. The customer is simple or bad. And these are risks. Is the contractor ready to carry them?
In the portfolio of projects of any studio the picture is approximately the following. A third of the projects are very profitable, half of the projects are conditionally normal, and a third are very unprofitable. They are unprofitable, not because someone is guilty, but circumstances have arisen. As with the insurance policy. Someone just went on the road and by coincidence, had an accident. As an insurance company, you must fulfill your obligations. We have many times had cases when we took out a million rubles from our own pocket and reported to the project budget. It is no coincidence that we sell our sites more expensive. We sell them for as long as expect from us a certain level of responsibility. People who do it cheaper (not for a million, but for a hundred thousand) cannot bear such a degree of responsibility. As soon as the requirements on the part of the customer change, we immediately have difficulties with the subcontractor.
')
HF: In principle, all this is true, if it is a third-party outsourcing company. And if you open a branch?
MT: Yes, we planned to open our branch. There is a trick here. For each programmer’s hour, one manager’s hour is required. No one understands this. The project manager is spending the most, especially on a large project. Collect requirements, manage requirements, test, communicate with the customer, set project tasks, etc. This is hard work, which you need to invest a lot in order for the project to be launched and implemented. At the same time, the manager should sit near the customer (in this case in Moscow). If at the same time the developers are remote, then there will be such a communication that the manager will need to spend even more time than he spends sitting in the same office. Developers are not the most expensive resource at all. This is one big mistake to think that it is generally expensive. Compared with the heads and managers, the cost of developers in the project (programmer, designer, coder ...) generally fades. So we get that the mythical savings in the salaries of developers of 20-30% in general does not please anyone against the background of basic costs.
As a result, we have never opened our branch. When they started to count, it turned out that this is some kind of idiocy)
V.CH: According to your words, it seems that the cost of production is an insignificant part of the cost of the final product.?
M.T: Exactly. Production is 15%, maximum 20%. Manager’s job - 30%. 20-25% - this is the total project costs (sales, warranty), the remaining 25-30% I would call "implementation" (modifications, additions, launch). The production itself, which can be brought to the region, makes no sense to go there. This is true, but nobody wants to know it. All these figures are confirmed by statistics from our accounting system, in which, for many years, perfectly-accurate hours are kept. Moreover, if you look at the project’s spending, then, in addition to the manager and the main developers, there are many people involved in the project who spend little time on the project. At the same time, they all communicate with each other. If they communicated remotely, then the time of their participation can be easily multiplied by 5 due to communication problems. Is it outsourced?
I believe that effective outsourcing in our field of activity is a myth. In other countries, please, but not in Russia.
V.CH: What is the reason for this?
MT: India and the United States, for example, work because there is a wild gap in the standard of living and, as a result, a wild gap in the cost of the code. At the same time, the Americans themselves say that the code is terrible, everything is terrible, but it is so cheap ...). If the salary in the region would be several times less, then we could talk about this kind of cooperation, but within the framework of one country this is unrealistic.
V.CH: It always seemed to me that programmers in Moscow get an order of magnitude more than in the outback of Russia.
MT: In general, programmers like to exaggerate their income), telling each other what their salaries are. I often hear: "Over 100 thousand is for food to work ...". This is all nonsense of course, complete. We hire people all the time, we know. The reality is not like that. Real wages are much less than people between each other are proud of. Today, the average salary of a programmer in Moscow (if you do not take into account the salary in some crazy start-ups) is 30, maximum 35 thousand per month. This is the average salary, taking into account all large and small. Really starts from 15 to 60.
V.CH: How is it possible for 35,000 people to live to a person who came from the region and rents an apartment for 20 thousand?
MT: You are hopelessly far from reality. Here lives so many people who live and for less money. No need to think that in Moscow is a very sweet life. Room for 10 thousand, travel on the subway and the remainder of the food. So the situation is like that. If in the regions developers would get 10 or 5 thousand, then working with them would probably make sense. But since they receive the same 25-30 thousand there, it is not clear for what reason to start everything.
V.Ch .: If there is a need, for what cost of an hour are you ready to buy the time of regional teams, with sufficient quality of work?
M.: 100 rubles.
V.CH: Seriously?
M. T: Absolutely. More than 100 rubles would not pay. It is absolutely real. More expensive to us is simply not profitable.
HF: What form of cooperation is most effective? Team rental, hourly pay, piecework?
MT: Only one option will suit me. For example, a team sits in Saratov, we buy it for a certain amount per month and, it works only for us. Model outstaffing. The third one is no longer due to responsibility (we will definitely change our requirements, because they will be changed by the customer, but they definitely will not be able to draw it out). The second model in my opinion is not effective, especially when working remotely. Accordingly, it will be exactly outstaffing.
V.CH: Why do you think hourly pay is not effective?
MT: I am against it. Programmers are not the people with whom you need to play such games. For most people, such complex schemes only harm. People should get a big salary if they work well and a little if they work poorly. But, anyway, they should receive a stable salary and know that they will receive it tomorrow. A person will never sit at work more for the additional 100 rubles of extracurricular work. I do not believe in the primitive motivation of hourly pay.
V.CH: Mikhail, in your opinion, what will the web development market evolve in 5-7 years?
MT: That will remain the same. The turnover of money on the site development market will greatly increase, but almost all the money will be deposited within the companies of the customers. They will create their own teams, maintain and develop their own departments. For them, sites become too important to be badly done. We will never be able to provide such salaries to our employees, as a bank can do, for example. If tomorrow VTB Bank needs to do its website very well and very quickly, it will be able to put together on its side such a strong team that the web studio will never assemble. Inside, he will spend incomparably more money, but it will not soar anyone, because it will be important.
Big players will hardly appear. Integrated service providers — system integrators and large advertising agencies — will become more active.
It will be more obvious division on the advertising part and technology. The advertising part will be divided as follows: a third of the money remains inside the companies themselves for their own specialists, half of the money is the large network advertising agencies and 10% in the form of 10% remain for independent studios. With technology it will be even worse. 50% of the money will remain within companies, 40% to system integrators and other integrated service providers, 10% to other web studios.
You need to understand that most likely the current web studios have no chance of becoming big. What is, and will remain so. They will get a small piece of cake. At the same time, there are chances to take strong positions in any narrow niches. I believe that there may be some kind of regional studios that are very strong in local topics. For example, a team that is best able to do complex projects for transport companies. In highly specialized niches everything is still free. Nobody even tried to do it. And in this case, regional binding will have no meaning. The main thing on their side is to collect a unique competence, where experts who understand the problems will work, are better than the customer.
V.CH: Thank you for the interesting conversation. I count on your answers to the comments of readers.
In the next article I will try to summarize the interview with Oksana Klimenko (RBC SOFT), Dmitry Kozlov (DEFA Interaktiv), Misha Tokovinin and draw some conclusions. If you wish, help me in this. Waiting for comments and questions.
Vasily Churanov, the head of the Tvins regional studio and the Web-canape quick solutions project, conducts a series of interviews with representatives of Runet’s top studios.
Anyone who is interested in this topic can read the first two interviews with Dmitry Kozlov (DEFA Intreaktiv company) and Oksana Klimenko (RBC SOFT company)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/96594/
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